7 Secrets From the Man Who Turned a Kickstarter Flop Into the Most Successful Campaign Ever

The first time Ryan Grepper took his tricked-out cooler idea to Kickstarter, he failed to make his $125,000 goal. The second time, his cooler became the most funded project in Kickstarter history. Heres what he learned.

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A decade ago, Ryan Grepper decided he wanted to be able to make
frozen mixed drinks while picnicking with his friends and family.
So, he attached a blender to a weed whacking engine.

The picnic-ready frozen drink machine was a hit at outdoor
parties -- and it inspired a product that, as of today, has
raised more money on crowdfunding site Kickstarter
than any other product ever. That single act of problem-solving
ingenuity launched a million-dollar idea, times ten.

Building on his initial contraption, Grepper eventually designed
a cooler with a blender built in. The Portland, Ore.-based serial inventor also
added a smattering of snazzy features including speakers, a
phone charger and rugged wheels. He dubbed his pimped-out
cooler “The Coolest.”

Last month, he launched a crowdfunding campaign, seeking to raise
$50,000 for large-scale production. The campaign -- which closes
Friday -- has since raised more than $10.3 million, breaking
the previous record set by the Pebble smartwatch in May 2012.

Perhaps the most remarkable component of Grepper’s story, though,
is not that his MacGyvered cooler raised mega money, but that six
months earlier, The Coolest was a dud. That’s right -- in its
first Kickstarter campaign, launched last November,
The Coolest failed to make its $125,000
goal.

At a glance, the two campaigns don’t look all that different. So,
what gives? How did Grepper’s crowdfunding campaign fail the
first time and, a few short months later, rock to the top of the
most funded list?

Entrepreneur.com tracked down Grepper to get his best advice on
running a blockbuster, come-from-behind Kickstarter campaign.
Here are his secrets.

1. Have a fully equipped prototype available to show in
photos and videos. Grepper had built a version of The
Coolest when he launched on Kickstarter that first time, but he
wasn’t able to fashion all of the features promised. For example,
having a USB charger in The Coolest was a “stretch goal” that
would be included if the campaign hit a threshold, but it was not
embedded in the prototype featured. Also, the wide-wheels and
space divider were not built into the first prototype. By the
time he launched his second campaign, he had a fully retrofitted
prototype. “It is such a visual medium that I think that is one
of those minimum steps I would suggest people make is bring their
design to a state where people can see what the product is going
to be rather than imagine how great this will be.”

2. Make sure your video is short and
customer-focused. Grepper watched scores of videos on
crowdfunding campaign pages for products in a similar product
category to The Coolest and analyzed what he liked, didn’t like
and what was successful in getting him interested in the product
and what was offputting. First and foremost, you need to keep
your video short. You don’t have much time: 2-1/2 to 3-1/2
minutes tops, estimates Grebber.

Also, successful videos aren’t narcissistic: They focus on the
customer. “So many people focus on the features [of their
product] and they focus on how they came up with this idea, and
really it needs to be primarily about the benefits of your
potential backer. How is this going to improve their life, their
situation, their day to day experience?” said Grepper, who hired
a 17-year-old for the production of his video.

3. Think about your product’s
timing. Launching a crowdfunding campaign for a cooler
in December was a bit of an error in judgement, said Grepper. He
had thought that launching in the holiday shopping spree might be
a boon for his campaign, but “the obvious hindsight observation
is that one of the coldest months of the year is not the time to
trying to get people excited about coolers,” said Grepper. “And
so relaunching here in the summer was a big help.”

4. Tell people about your crowdfunding campaign before
you even launch it. “So much of what makes a
crowdfunding campaign successful is the work that is done before
it ever goes live,” said Grepper. You have to get people excited
about your product, aware of your crowdfunding campaign and
lining up to donate when you finally officially launch.

Grepper’s Kickstarter failure the first time worked to his
benefit, as he was able to launch his second campaign with
support from his initial group of backers. “When we launched [the
second time], we had this larger group who would be with us on
day one to help make a big splash. And just like throwing rocks
in a pond. If you throw pebbles, the ripples you get from a
pebble are significantly different from throwing a big rock in.
And the big splash helps us attain that multiplier effect and
that is what really helped our project get the momentum it did
early on.”

5. Go all out on the social-media channel where you’re
getting the most traction. Reach out to potential
campaign backers on Facebook, Twitter and email with updates.
Grepper blanketed the social-media spectrum, but had the most
success on Facebook and decided to focus more of his energy
there.

6. Successful crowdfunding requires marketing.
You can’t expect everyone to love your idea the way you do -- you
have to sell it to them. “That first Kickstarter campaign, I made
what I would call, one of the most rookie mistakes of
crowdfunding, which is thinking that when you launch with a good
idea, that’s all that’s required,” said Grepper. Raising money
from the crowd requires preparation, elbow grease, and honest
analysis of your idea. “That’s the biggest mistake most inventors
make -- is they look at an idea from a passion perspective rather
than analyzing it as a business opportunity.”

7. A crowdfunding failure doesn’t mean “game
over.” “I think the biggest lesson from that first
campaign was recognizing that failure isn’t permanent,” said
Grepper. “It is an opportunity to either give up and move on to
the next project, if that’s what the data and what the feedback
shows, or it is a chance to recognize and learn from those
mistakes, dive deeper into best practices and launch again.” In
addition to his own continued commitment to the idea of The
Coolest, Grepper said that he was buoyed by the enthusiasm of his
earliest backers.